Some of you may remember the fateful day last spring when our Japanese-language reporter Go bought what was probably the cheapest car in Japan by acquiring his current ride for just 980 yen (US $8.30). Nine months later, not only is his 1997 Mitsubishi Minica still firing on all three cylinders under its hood, but it recently passed its mandatory biennial safety inspection, called shaken in Japanese.

In celebration, Go treated the Minica to a wash for the first time since he drove it back to Tokyo from Nagoya. With a fresh coat of wax, it was looking better than ever, but Go still wasn’t 100-percent satisfied with the car’s appearance. See, Go believes the Mini is just an overall cooler car than the Minica, so he set out to transform the latter into the former using the finest vinyl sheets and magic markers he could find.

The world of eclectic fashion just got even more bizarre with its newest addition of the “rib blouse.”

Originally designed by Tetzco and fashioned into a three-dimensional, wearable piece of clothing by TRMN,the blouse is designed to mimic the bone structure of the human body, complete with ribs and vertebrae. Feel like wearing your ribs and spine like an exoskeleton? Then this could be the perfect new addition to your closet!

On 24 February a Twitter account named @KhilafahTimes posted a threatening message to the world apparently on behalf of the extremist group known as ISIS, ISIL, or Da’ish. Although it doesn’t directly name a city, the accompanying image depicts the city of Taipei with the landmark Taipei 101 in flames and several other smoldering buildings.

Also troubling is that despite the brutal acts of violence this group has become known for, their list of offences has just grown even longer. Now they are also guilty of the worst crime known to the MPAA: unauthorized usage of another’s work.

Making movie posters is tough. You not only have to catch the eye of people passing by, but also get them excited and inform them on what the movie is about, all at the same time. When a poster is donewell, it can be just as memorable as the movie itself. And when it’s donebadly, well, it can be memorable in a different kind of way.

Artist Olly Moss however, whom we’ve met before with his amazing video game-inspired ceramic plates, is a master of the poster medium. He’s recently been picked up by Japanese websites for creating new posters of classic movies, including Studio Ghibli films. Get ready: your nostalgia meter is about to be cranked up to 10, and you’re going to go hunting through your old DVDs very soon.

The rumors of Naruto’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Sure, last November marked the end of creator Masashi Kishimoto’s manga, after an amazing 15 years of serialization collected into 72 volumes. But while manga fans no longer get to see their ninja pals in the pages of weekly anthology Shonen Jump, elsewhere Naruto and company have been popping up all over the place.

The anime TV series is still ongoing, and last December’s The Last: Naruto the Movie isn’t as conclusive as it sounds, as there’s another Naruto theatrical feature scheduled for release in August. Then, of course, there’s the highly anticipatedstageadaptation of the series.

And if all that’s still not enough for you, there’s an exhibition of Naruto artwork set to open in Tokyo and Osaka soon, with a sneak peak just a week away.

With the long Golden Week holiday only a couple of months away, many residents of Japan may well be wondering where best to use their precious vacation days. Tokyo? Kyoto? Perhaps a traditional Japanese hotel? How about Koshu City, Yamanashi Prefecture?

A new video introducing the relatively small city of Koshu might just make people reconsider their travel plans. With stunning views of Mount Fuji, world-famous vineyards, and a wealth of cultural events, Koshu is the perfect place for both escaping the bustle of big city life and getting a glimpse of traditional Japan.

Here at RocketNews24, there’s only one thing we like better than badly photoshopped pictures, and that’s brilliantly edited photos that make the President of the United States look like a massive otaku.

Harry’s wand; Luke’s lightsaber; Eren’s 3D maneuver gear. Surely more than a few fans have at some point pictured themselves wielding one of these iconic objects. While some must be content with imagining, others may find themselves the happy owners of something straight out of the realm of fantasy.

Such was the case with one Final Fantasy super-fan named Brittany Walloch. Unbeknownst to her, Brittany’s fiancé got in touch with the minds behind Super-Fan Builds, a popular web series that creates custom items for die-hard film and video game fans. The crafting wizards at Tim Baker Productions then went to work designing a one-of-a-kind gift. Let’s just say chopping vegetables will never be the same.

“Panchira,” the Japanese word for “panty-shot,” usually conjures up images of creepy guys on the train trying to angle their smartphone cameras under the skirts of schoolgirls. But to be fair, while that’s certainly an unfortunate part of panchira culture, that’s not all there is to it. When panchira is done tastefully, it can be considered art, just like any other form of photography.

To prove that point, “Panchira 2015,” a photography exhibition devoted exclusively to pictures of panty-shots, was held last week, and they recently announced that they had over 20,000 attendees. With the incredible enthusiasm of both the guests and the people running it, it’s not hard to see why.

It’s almost guaranteed to adorn the walls of every study abroad student in Japan, plus the living room of your worldly, “enlightened” friend that minored in East Asian studies.

Of course, we’re talking about “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” – legendary ukiyo-e woodblock painter Hokusai’s most renowned work that depicts a fearsome-looking wave battering old-timey fishing boats off the coast of Kanagawa, Japan.

With its claw-like foam signaling impending doom for the fisherman and other artistic flourishes, one would think that the wave depicted is strictly artistic license, but one French photographer has captured strikingly similar-looking waves in real life.

At first glance, they seem like Transformers, or perhaps unusually flashy Gundam. Then you notice the color scheme, followed by a number of cylindrical trimmings and its unusual shape. “I feel like I’ve seen that somewhere before…” you wonder to yourself. Then it clicks. “Oh.”

While Tenga toys may not be the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks “Valentine’s Day,” some highly imaginative artists capitalized on the romantic holiday to recast the popular adult products as robots. Don’t think of them as mere joke drawings, however; these creations are the real deal. We take a look at some of the spectacular art below.

Like us, you’ve probably wondered from time to time what life as a badass anime illustrator might be like.

If a life of awesomely detailed backgrounds, fluidly animated characters, chain smoking, and endless cups of instant noodles is something you long for, Japanese anime tutorial YouTube channel, Palmie, is just for you.

Hey that’s a nice photograph of a peaceful oasis in Tokyo. Wait, it’s not a photograph? It’s a drawing? Made with colored pencils?!

Ryota Hayashi has been bringing the Nakano Ward of Tokyo to life for the past several years through his breathtakingly realistic colored pencil renditions. He’s recently been getting a lot of attention on social media, and it’s not at all hard to see why.

Ukiyo-e, or woodblock prints, are a celebrated art form in Japan with a long and distinguished history. But you’d be mistaken if you thought it was all serious art and depictions of beautiful things. There’s also a lot of ukiyo-e out there that’s a bit, well, weird and gross, like that one picture of the dudes farting at each other. Today, we’d like to share with you one such bizarre collection from famous artist Kuniyoshi Utagawa depicting one of Japan’s most beloved national animals, the tanuki, aka raccoon dog – notorious for having really, really huge testicles.

From the Heian period to today, Japan has had more than its fair share of great writers. While Ki no Tsurayuki and Murasaki Shikibu are this humble writer’s favorite members of the Japanese literati, today we’re talking about someone a bit more modern: Osamu Dazai. Famous for his first-person and often morose stories, such as the world-famous novel No Longer Human, Dazai was one of the more troubled figures of Japanese literature–and he eventually died in a double suicide when only 38 years old.

Considering his turbulent life, it’s probably no surprise that his classroom doodles, drawn in his English and Ethics notebooks, are so fascinating! Even if you’ve never read a single word by the author, you still won’t want to miss these drawings.

Kiri-e (切り絵) is the Japanese art of hand-cutting paper into intricate designs. Kirigami (切り紙), on the other hand, involves cutting and folding paper to create a 3-D image that pops right off the page. But one talented Japanese artist has combined these two traditional art forms, creating folded paper cranes that contain a seemingly impossible-to-achieve cut-out design. Let’s take a closer look at her stunning artwork!

Giant monster movies were the Japanese reaction to the atom bomb and an allegory to the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Their message was clear, Godzilla is a fearsome monster that can occur when science and technology get carried away. These kaiju (Japanese for giant monster) were intimidating creatures designed to be the bad guy. It’s pretty easy to cheer for their destruction when they look super scary.

We don’t have a time machine to go back and check Toho’s original concept designs, but we are pretty sure they didn’t look anything like the “Godzilla Female Personification Project“. This version of Gojira has got a bit of the boom boom, and it makes us think the wrong thing.

Even if you’re not familiar with the term, you’ve probably seen, and can recognize, what’s known as the Willow pattern. A mainstay of European ceramic tableware since the 1700s, the design takes cues from Chinese porcelain and features a characteristic blue and white color scheme.

Given its long history, even modern examples of Willow pattern dishware tend to feature quant depictions of trappings of life from a bygone era. Sailing ships and windmills are common subjects, but one artist felt the Willow pattern would also be an appropriate platform for showcasing the video game art of yesteryear, and created these plates featuring old-school artwork from Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda and Pokémon.

You can use the phrase “paper tiger” to describe someone or something that’s not as tough as it appears to be, but you could conjure up the same image just as easily with a different pair of words. For example, “cardboard tank” seems like it could serve the same linguistic purpose. So could “cardboard Gundam” or “cardboard M16,” for that matter.

But while those might not be as powerful as their original, non-cardboard forms, they are all incredibly awesome when made out of corrugated cardboard, as proven by the creations of artist Monami Ono, who makes all those and more out of cardboard boxes from Amazon.

Jakuchu Ito (伊藤若冲), who lived from 1716-1800, was one of Japan’s most prolific painters during the nation’s Edo period of isolation from the rest of the world. The majority of his works were in the form of hanging scroll paintings, and while they often depicted incredibly intricate scenes from the natural world, one Japanese net user was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon this picture of a mother and child gibbon that appears decidedly more playful in nature, and it’s sure to melt your heart!